Baby Bird: Feathered friend indeed in the hour of need

As her grocery cart rolled toward the parking lot, a wee lump on the sidewalk began flailing about. It was a baby bird, fallen from its nest in the eaves.

As her grocery cart rolled toward the parking lot, a wee lump on the sidewalk began flailing about. It was a baby bird, fallen from its nest in the eaves.

The energy that little body expended was way out of proportion to its size. But all that effort was woefully misdirected. The bird would land upside down, then on one wing or the other. If by a stroke of luck it landed on its feet, the first hop would misfire and it would be upside down or backwards again.

“Not going there,” vowed she whose history was littered with failed attempts at rescuing wounded critters.

As soon as other errands were completed, her car steered itself back to the grocery store. “I’ll just check to see if he’s been squashed yet or bruised himself to death,” she thought.

The bird was still there, impersonating a Mexican jumping bean with small moments of stillness followed by frenzied drunken cartwheels.

Was it helplessness in the face of recent deaths and health crises among friends and relatives that trumped her common sense? Whatever the reason, she decided, “I can do something about this.”

A Kleenex became the perfect combination diaper/blanket with room to spare. Thusly wrapped, the bird behaved while one-handed steering got them safely home. There, she could examine her new charge more thoroughly.

The wee head, wings, and tail were fully feathered, hence totally mismatched with the rest of Baby Bird’s body. The craw (neck) was a yucky yellow lopsided bulb with nary a feather to tone it down. Everywhere else, the skinny body’s occasional feather, rather than adding beauty, simply looked bedraggled. Long, toothpick legs stuck out at unnatural angles. Obviously, their owner’s brain had yet to connect with these appendages.

In short, this was a baby that only a mother could love … assuming that mom wasn’t the one who pushed him out of the nest.

The one thing Baby Bird had going for him was what had attracted her in the first place — his gigantic will to live. The minute he was placed in a size-appropriate cardboard box, this will manifested itself in loud chirps and a wide-open beak.

The first worm wasn’t enough for Baby Bird, but more than enough for the caretaker, who nevertheless had to reply to “feed me” chirps with more worms.

(WARNING! Anyone eating a meal while reading this should skip the next five paragraphs.)

“Ever tried to feed live worms to a baby bird?” she asked a friend.

“No.”

“Well, it’s not easy, mainly because the worms keep crawling back out.”

“You’re supposed to chew them first,” he quipped. Or at least she hoped it was a quip.

Several times a day feedings occurred … ordeals for all three participants: the provider, whose pointer finger was not designed for worm-poking; Baby Bird, because his feeder’s ineptness brought on lots of extra swallowing; the worm, because the other two eventually succeeded.

(DINERS RESUME READING HERE) A bird expert suggested adding unseasoned scrambled eggs to Baby Bird’s menu. Even as he gobbled down all offerings, she who fed him knew that the expert’s prognosis — this fledgling was too young to survive — was probably true.

The two of them lived in the moment, soaking up the quiet joy of early mornings and late afternoons in the swing. There, Baby Bird listened closely to backyard birdsongs, and sometimes joined in; when it came to lullabies, was partial to a poignant setting of Psalm 42, “As the Deer Longs for Running Streams…;” seemed at peace in his cozy Kleenex.

From Saturday afternoon through Monday evening, “feed me” and “let’s swing,” along with occasional time in front of the TV, soon became a pattern. But on Tuesday morning, Baby Bird had no appetite.

They headed toward what would surely be their final tender time outdoors. While there, she remembered one swing time when Baby Bird’s heartbeat was so strong it felt like cupping, not a bird, but a pulse in her hand. It felt like hope.

Later, she opened a new bar of soap to use its box as a small enough coffin; buried him in the future shade of a yet-to-be-planted crepe myrtle.

At the grocery, seeing Baby Bird’s relatives going about their busy bird lives without him tugs at the heart. But it’s a comfort to know his final moments weren’t spent bruising himself to death or being crushed by a careless cart.

Considering her lack of feathers and inborn know-how, she did her best for that one persistent pulse on planet Earth.

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Wilmoth Foreman is a Columbia native. Visit her website at www.wilmothforeman.com.

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